A former Marist brother and teacher jailed for eight years on 180 counts of indecent assault on six schoolboys had his conviction set aside by the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday.
A retrial has now been ordered.
Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, presiding, also removed the man's name from the sex offenders' register.
The man who is in his 60s and who was in court for the judgment, was congratulated by friends after the ruling.
Last March, the former Marist brother was jailed for eight years on 180 counts of indecent assault on six schoolboys at a west of Ireland school from 1968 to 1977.
The boys were aged from seven years to 12 years of age at the time.
In its decision granting his appeal, the court found the trial judge had erred in law in failing to adequately warn the jury on the effect of gross delay in the making of formal complaints alleging sexual abuse.
Mr Justice Kearns said the court was satisfied the trial judge should have dwelt at some length in his charge to the jury on the difficulties caused for the defendant where offences of such antiquity are alleged.
This arose particularly where no complaints were made in the aftermath of the alleged offences and where there were very few isolating islands of fact which would enable a defendant address their mind in a specific way to the presence, or otherwise, of certain physical arrangements or features of the environment in which it was alleged various offences took place.
In this case, virtually all of the offences were alleged to have taken place in the classroom and at the same point in the classroom, the court noted.